Veteran Education Week reporter Catherine Gewertz teams up with Liana Heitin, formerly a classroom teacher and reporter at Education Week Teacher, to bring you news and analysis of issues at the core of classroom learning.

By guest blogger Sarah D. Sparks Research shows the value of a high school diploma to the job market faltering at the same time policymakers and educators are looking for ways to increase the number of students who graduate high school. "Attainment of a diploma is a weak signal" of a student's ability to complete college or progress in a career said Henry I. Braun, an education and public policy professor at Boston College's Lynch School of Education, at a recent research symposium on student success after high school. "We have a substantial and differential leakage at each segment of ...